Pokim is one latest scholar of STEM4Girls scholarship program who has moved to Phnom Penh for her studies 4 months ago. This year, Pokim is studying in grade 11 and has just reached home for some school holidays. As someone who likes studying science and IT topics, let’s find out how the new school has been for her so far and what she has planned for this school break!
Pokim certainly is shining with her resilience and resourcefulness in her studies. There is no doubt that she will be able to overcome future challenges with her positive attitude! Pokim conveyed that she missed her family a lot because she wasn’t able to see them for 4 months and hence is very enthusiastic about this holiday break. “ I am very happy and excited! I look forward to travelling and eating with my family when I am home!” We wish that her dreams were fulfilled and she was able to enjoy some amazing delicacies with her family.
If you’d like to support girls like Pokim to complete school, you can donate here, thank you for all your support and happy April!
Story written by: Volunteer Zeleen Thum
0 Comments
PeopleStories achieved its new milestone on 19 April 2022 by organising the I-Grow Holiday Learning Program for its 150 scholarship children. I-Grow is designed to empower the rural community, including children, teachers and their families with greater life skills to make sustainable change. I-Grow is a newly established interactive learning program and this time we are focusing on Problem Solving skills. In a constantly changing environment and with the dramatic impact from the pandemic, life skills are an essential part of being able to meet the challenges of everyday life.
When talking about the challenges, Maria said that not being familiar with the context nor the language is a challenge. “It is difficult to plan without too much knowledge of the context and I constantly questioned if the activities were at the level of the learners, but Victoria and Pheak Heng (also a virtual volunteer of PeopleStories) were fantastic in helping answer all the questions.”
Maria, who dedicated her life to education said: “I have been working in supporting professors at the university level in enhancing their teaching. I have also been working with students in creating spaces for them to learn how to become lifelong learners. I hope we get to run many more iterations of I-Grow and provide PeopleStories children the skills needed in their near future.”
With full endorsement, Director Reangsey from the Ministry shared at his closing remarks, "I am delighted to see the active participation to all the learning activities from our students and teachers. Thank you PeopleStories for bringing the power of education to Bakong, especially the important life skill like problem solving." Would you want to help us expand I-Grow with the deserving children in rural Cambodia? Join us as a virtual volunteer now: https://bit.ly/Join_PS Story written by: Volunteer Pei Khoek After of two years of only zoom video of the ceremony, Founder Victoria finally returned to Cambodia to attend the School for Life Scholarship ceremony in person. With high spirits, Victoria got to witness the arrival of the bikes, setting up of the tentage for the ceremony and follow the teachers on their home visits to deeply understand how the children's family situation is. As Victoria gave out the scholarship and took photographs with the awardees, the act of gifting dreams to these children brought great happiness. The vibrant performance by the children and the earnest speech of the parents all culminated in a dream come true for the children, parents and the community.
This is exactly what PeopleStories aims to do: to provide an opportunity for deserving children to receive quality education. PeopleStories goes beyond just providing school fees and books. We gifted bicycles, extra classes for Math, Physics, Khmer and Chemistry. With these aspects taken care of, the willing students have a fighting chance to go as far as they strive for. ‘I love going to school because I can learn many things. I like learning Khmer because it is a very easy subject for me to learn,” said a new scholarship student earnestly. His home has no door nor flooring. Everything he has can be seen in a glance. His mother has passed away from Aids and his ailing father is suffering from Aids. Sadly, he is also infected with Aids from birth. Yet, he remains hopeful and has the wish of becoming a teacher one day. These students love their village and aspire to improve the housing and transport of their village.
Want to create chances for those without? Please donate at:
https://ps-schoolforlife2022.raisely.com Story written by: volunteer Bok Hoon Ong Happy 2022! Entering the new year, there are so many new and exciting projects that PeopleStories team is working on and we are looking forward to sharing with you! One of them is the construction of fences around Chea Smonn Secondary School! There isn’t any boundary around the school. Instead, the school compound is directly connected to a few neighbouring farms. Hence, every so often, there are animals like cows wandering into the school compound, and at times, into the classrooms! Occasionally, farming machines (such as tractors) will also come into the school grounds where students are running and playing. This peculiar phenomenon compromises the safety of our students.
PeopleStories believes in encouraging the locals and communities to get involved in community changes for sustainable positive changes. Many older students and their families are dropping in whenever they have time to give a helping hand, we are so excited to see the strong community spirit! School Director Nika of Chea Smonn Secondary School said excitedly, “I envision more order in school with the building of the fences. Students will be more attentive during lessons. I imagine the school to have good aesthetics and campus, safe with space to grow vegetables. The building of this fence will definitely help with this goal!”
Like Director Nika, we look forward to the improved school and learning environment for our students! We truly hope that this fence project will bring about positive changes in their school experience!
If you want to support our cause and more projects like this, head over to our fundraising page here to donate! This year we are aiming to give out 150 scholarships to our students! Wishing you an amazing start to 2022! Story written by: Volunteer Zeleen Thum It is a dream come true for Pokim when she heard the news about her STEM4Girls scholarship! Pokim said resolutely, “I am so happy to be selected for STEM4Girls scholarship. I will put in extra efforts to improve my spoken English and computer skills.” If you remember, Pokim is one of the students, who has contributed time and efforts in the preparation of the “Zero Waste” competition. She has just relocated to the capital city of Phnom Penh for this life changing opportunity. We are thrilled to see her taking yet another step closer to reach her dreams.
In fact, a survey conducted by the UNICEF in 2012 shows that 36.1% of children in the country aged between 5 and 17 work as labourers, with more than 5 percent engaged in hazardous labouring tasks. In the Cambodian society, customarily, boys are considered more important than girls. This belief is taught from one generation to another and has been largely shaped by the ‘Chbab Srey’ – sort of Code of Conduct for women – in which, basically, women are taught to be “worthless”. Poverty, stereotypes and distance to school also are the main reasons that keep girls out of school (instead of complete school). Additional factors also include lack of career opportunities, corruption, the lack of latrines and sanitary facilities and the lack of female teacher (or even female school directors).
Would you like to play a part in helping more girls gain access to STEM education? Wave your magic wand for the girls, make a donation today: https://ps-schoolforlife2022.raisely.com/
Source: https://universelles.net/2017/09/08/girls-education-current-challenges-in-cambodia/ Story written by: Volunteer Bok Hoon Ong We have our winners from our Zero Waste competition! On 10th November, all the finalists gathered together for the final judging. Along with Teacher Sarith and Teacher Song, who helped to translate between the judges and the students, each finalist had a chance to pitch to the panel that their product deserves to win! It was heartwarming to see the local community wearing their PeopleStories uniform and talking to one another as they shared their creations. Our judges included Mr. Reangsey Tann, the Director of Ministry of Education (Bakong District) and Victoria, our founder, Matt LeNevez, our charity ambassador, Pavlos Spyroupoulos, our corporate supporter and CEO of Llyod’s Asia and Ghada Turner, another one of our corporate supporters and CEO of Pantry to Plate.
How did the judges feel about Borey’s createion? “The judges and I were blown away by Borey’s creativity for designing the travel luggage. He is so resourceful by upcycling used milk cans as wheels and water pipes as handles. We were also inspired to hear about his dream for being a footballer and how this travel luggage will bring him overseas,” Victoria gushed. We certainly think that he is one amazing boy with incredible aspirations too! Like Borey, another winner Solyn from the Student & Family Category, was ecstatic when she heard that she had won first place in the competition! She mused on how this competition has changed the way she now look at waste, “Before I think that waste can’t be reused but now, we can reuse and change it into other things that can use to decorate school or home.” We are truly happy to see that this competition has created a mindset shift in our participants. On why Solyn’s and her family’s creation were Champions, Victoria raved, “Solyn’s pitch performance was one of the best! We were all very impressed not only by the items she made but by her enormous courage to speak up. We certainly heard her voice about sustainability loud and clear.” Hearing that, we sure think that she deserved to win! Victoria summed up the thoughts of the judging panel, “The amount of creativity we saw is just tremendous. With such limited resources, the children have done so well by not only ideating but actually building items like travel luggage, flip flops...etc. I am delightfully surprised.” We have received many positive feedback right after the event. Roberta, one of our supporters thanked us for creating and hosting such a wonderful event and that she thinks, “All the finalists were just amazing!" We will absolutely host similar event again and boost quality education with our children in rural Cambodia. When asked about how the prizes won will help our students, Victoria said, “During school closures due to COVID-19, 60% of our scholarship children have no digital asset to enable their online learning. Therefore, we have decided to provide 4 smart phones and 260kg of rice as their prizes. With these smart phones, we are hoping to open more online education opportunities for our children in rural Cambodia and bringing the wider world to them.” We are elated that Zero Waste has come to a fruitful end and we would like to celebrate our journey with this competition and the creations of all our participants whether they won or not. We are so proud of every single one of our participants and their creations. If you were not at the live event and would love to watch it, do not fret! We have the video up on our Facebook Channel, so do check it out and give us a follow! Also, if you’d like to support our children in Cambodia and provide them with more of such opportunities, visit our fundraising webpage. Your support is greatly appreciated! Story written by: Volunteer Zeleen Thum The school closure had been a particularly challenging period for both teachers, students and families, especially those who live in the rural areas, the very students that PeopleStories is reaching out to help.
Yes, the teachers are not only working hard to ensure that the students are keeping up in the learning, but also drumming the importance about ‘3 do not and 3 protect’, the new safety standards to keep everyone safe. The ‘3 do not’s’ are not staying in crowded areas; not going out unnecessarily; not staying in enclosed area with no air circulation. And the ‘3 protects’ mean to wear the mask in the right way; to wash the hands frequently and to keep a gap from one another.
Want to give us a helping hand supporting the dedicated teachers and students? https://bit.ly/PS100Dreams202021
Story written by: Volunteer Bok Hoon Ong Zero Waste Competition is at the FINAL! Based on creativity, repurposed materials used and the outcome of their product, we have excitingly selected 9 finalists who managed to nab the highest points on the scoreboard. Nevertheless, we were bowled over by the creations of all 33 groups of participants!
Looking at the colourful and varied types of the items that our participants have made, we think the judges will definitely have a hard time choosing the final winners! Due to Covid19, we unfortunately had to postpone our live judging event but we will certainly keep you posted through our Facebook page as soon as the date is confirmed. As part of the competition, our finalists had to master their 90-second video pitch to present their creations. We were so excited to see how some of them introduced themselves and their products differently! Some even pitched in English and that is REAL bravest!
On behalf of her team, Teacher Lis also expressed how excited and happy she is to be selected as one of the finalists of the competition! We are absolutely proud of our teachers creating their tables and chairs out of cardboards and rice bags!
Talking about the final judging of the event, Victoria enthused: “I am beyond chuffed for the day to come! While watching the video pitches, I can totally feel the passion from the children. I am so proud and amazed!” To what Victoria shared, we can say that we are too! Do you want to see more of the Zero Waste creations done by our participants? Subscribe to PeopleStories YouTube Channel to watch Part 1 and Part 2 of our video compilation and support our children in rural Cambodia. Story written by: Volunteer Zeleen Thum After 10 months being away from home and studying on our Road2STEM scholarship, KongNov and SreyMey finally returned home on their school holidays. “If you are not willing to learn, no one can help you. If you are determined to learn, no one can stop you.” This quote from Zig Ziglar aptly sums up how KongNov and SreyMey master their learning amidst the hurdles faced being away from home and having extended school closures due to the pandemic.
Learning has not been a bed of roses for them. In fact, KongNov had a first taste of failure studying STEM when she failed Maths for the very first time. While she was heartbroken, she resolved to do Maths questions everyday till she passed her exams. She not only passed her Maths exams but went on to score even better than before! Her persistence had paid off! With the prolonged school closures and learning taking place online, the girls had problems that were inevitable due to the inadequate network coverage. While most students just lamented about the problem, KongNov found a solution for the unstable network, “I need to learn and research before the teacher and when Teacher teaches me, I can understand. I also ask my friends when I need help.”
These advices resonate with all of us at PeopleStories. With such loving advice in mind, SreyMey and KongNov have been mastering their learning with heart. The heart to one day, lift the others in the village and also their country out of poverty. The growth of these girls has been nothing short of phenomenal. We are really proud and heartened to have played a part in unlocking their potential.
Join us in our quest to unlock the potential of more children in rural Cambodia. Read more about our Road2STEM scholarship: https://www.peoplestories.net/school-for-life.html Story written by: Volunteer Bok Hoon Ong What a great response from our communities! We have received a total of 33 entries for our Zero Waste competition. Teachers, students and their family members from our partner secondary schools have shown immense creativity and enthusiasm in creating a product that they believe deserves to win!
Student Pokim enthused, “I am very excited for the judging of the competition as I have taken part in it myself!” She also marvelled at the creativity of some of her peers, especially the one who has made use of plastics to create flowers! Does this make you curious about how the creations look like and what they are? We sure are!
Do you want to join us in this judging event and support the finalists? The judging event will be held live in early October. Head on over and follow our social media channels to keep up to date with the news and date of the judging event!
Story written by: Volunteer Zeleen Thum |
mission
To break the cycle of poverty by advancing education for underprivileged students, families and communities in need. |